Saturday, November 20, 2010

In the Sky

Discovered this tidbit among my notes a few weeks ago, though I don't remember writing it...

(Translated from the original French)

There was once a boy who loved to look, from his window, at the sky. He visited it often during the day to see outside, whether it was blue or cloudy. But his friends thought it was not good for a boy to do so; and when he said he was dreaming at the window, they replied that it was not good to dream. This he could not understand, and one by one his friends left him.

So afflicted was he by the loss of his friends that he decided to never again turn his eyes to the sky, not ever, but to travel the world, and from time to time stay in a little village or cottage that he'd find, and inquire whether someone would want to become his friend. He lived like this for three years.

There were some people who told him, “Go,” curtly; others who gave him bread and milk; and some others who invited him to their home to stay the night, the poor lad. But each night he closed his eyes to prevent them from seeing the stars and pulling him into a dream again. And nobody offered to be his friend.

At the end of the three years spent like that, the boy thought, “I find friends neither at night nor in the daytime. How then does one find a friend?” And, because he understood that he could not go on anymore, he stopped walking as he'd been doing. And he stayed where he was for a long time.

One day in the morning the boy slept, lying on the ground beside a little tree. And something strange happened to him: he felt himself dreaming. He took pleasure in this dream, because he dreamed that he was flying in the air, in the sky, where he had always wanted to live and spend his days.

Suddenly he was rudely awakened. A girl was there; she had bumped into him. She said, “Sorry! I’m so clumsy... I was looking up.”